


Coppertail

by emocezi



Series: The Coppertail Chronicles [1]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:14:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22073842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emocezi/pseuds/emocezi
Summary: Kenobi's been told not to swim outside of the coral reef, that there's things out there that will eat a pretty little mer like him. And he's been good about staying within the boundaries of the reef, of never venturing out past the corals.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex
Series: The Coppertail Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588879
Comments: 7
Kudos: 222





	Coppertail

**Author's Note:**

> What's up guys. This is my ridiculous clonewars merman AU. 
> 
> I don't really have anything to say about it other than it was a lot of fun to write and I hope you all enjoy it.

Kenobi's been told not to swim outside of the coral reef, that there's things out there that will eat a pretty little mer like him. And he's been good about staying within the boundaries of the reef, of never venturing out past the corals. 

Except today, today Garen and Bant have decided that he needs to see the ocean outside if the safety of the reef at least once. And they're not taking no for an answer.

There's a shark mer lounging at the edge of the reef, tossing small pebbles off the edge of the drop off and Kenobi pales, tries to swim away, only to have Garen grab his tail. 

"That's just Rex." Bant says, peeking out of the coral at the mer who glances at her, and goes back to tossing pebbles. "He only eats fish." 

"I only mostly eat fish." Rex corrects her, voice low and rumbling. "I've been known to snack on a bite sized mer now and again."

Kenobi goes pale and thrashes his fingers, trying to get Garen to let go. 

"Stop it." Bant snaps glaring at the shark. "It's his first trip out to the drop off." 

"First trip, huh?" Rex swims lazily out into open water and circles back around, moving to hover in front of the coral Kenobi is hiding in front of. "It's dangerous out here for a little mouthful like you." he looks over Kenobi's shining bronze fins and flashing copper hair. "Triton's beard you're a pretty little thing."

Kenobi goes bright red, stammering out words while Garen grins at him and Bant snickers quietly. 

"Come on then, coppertail. I'll show you around the drop off." Rex grins, slow and lazy, showing off razor sharp teeth. "I'll keep you safe. For a price of course." 

"A price?" Kenobi asks, wondering if Rex is going to take a bite out of his tail. 

"A kiss." Rex tells Kenobi. "And your promise that when you come of age, you'll come find me so I can woo you proper." 

Kenobi and Bant both gasp, Garen watching Rex with a frown. This wasn't part of his plan. 

"I.... I guess I can do that." Kenobi stammers and Rex grins at him and offers a hand. 

"I'll take my payment now." He tells Kenobi who shivers and gently takes Rex's hand, letting himself be tugged forward, wrapped up in strong arms. 

Rex brushes their mouths together, soft and sweet, nothing like the kiss Kenobi was expecting, and then he's released. "Coppertail." Rex says with a smile, looking over Kenobi in all his flame bright glory. "You're going to blow them all away in another few years."

XxX XxX

Kenobi grows from an awkward mer who’s hair and tail don’t match, to a stunning beauty who out shines even Bruck, with his ethereal hair and shimmering white tail.

His fins grow out, long and flowing. Useless beauty, Bruck calls them, though there’s wickedly jealously in his voice. He pinches the sensitive, fragile fins every chance he gets, until they’re ragged and frazzled and Kenobi is chastised for improper care of such beauty.

He puts up with it as best he can until it gets too much. Until every eye is disapproving on him and Bruck is nothing more in their eyes than an angel.

Kenobi sneaks out in the middle of the night, heading for the edge of the reef and the drop off.

He hasn’t seen Rex in nearly a year, since Bruck followed them and tattled. Up till now, it was the most trouble Kenobi had ever been in. He’d been confined to a strict boundary within the reef, warned against the dangers of shark mers, how they were just as bloodthirsty as the monsters they shared tails with.

Kenobi curls up in the edge of the drop off, doing his best to mend the tears in his tail, nipping off the most ragged bits and letting them float away over the edge of the world. Down into blackness.

He’s alone with his thoughts, the ocean dark, everything in it sleeping save for a few dark bodies that move out in the open ocean, hunting or playing, he’s not sure, but he doesn’t want to find out.

Kenobi snaps off a piece of fan coral, using it to brush through his hair, tugging through the knots.

He hates Bruck. Hates him and hates all the adults in the clan who take his side without even bothering to listen to Kenobi’s side if things, the way they’ve always done.

He doesn’t cry, doesn’t waste tears on Bruck, not like he used to when he was a child. He’ll be an adult in another month, a member of the reef, assigned a position, probably in the nursery with the newly hatched fry.

A shadow passes over him and Kenobi tries to flatten himself down against the coral, barely breathing. He shouldn’t have come out here, not in the middle of the night.

He’d been stupid. So stupid, thinking maybe he’d come across Rex out here after a year of cutting off contact with him. Of course Rex isn’t going to be out here, he’s probably moved on, hunting down defenseless fish and hapless humans who’d swum out to far.

His heart is pounding when the shadow circles overhead and he creeps slowly back. There’s a enormous ridge of coral three feet away. He just needs to get there and he’ll be safe.

He’s halfway there when the shadow lunges. Kenobi doesn’t remember what happens next, but he wakes up half cradled in someones arms.

XxX XxX

“Garen?”

“‘Fraid not, coppertail.”

“Rex?” His voice goes raspy and he feels tears welling up.

“What were you doing at the drop off?” Rex asks, running a hand over his hair.

“I-I don’t know.” Kenobi says, voice breaking. “Why did you do that? You scared me.”

“That wasn’t me.” Rex says with a little sigh, cuddling Kenobi close. “My idiot cousin, Fives thought it would be funny to scare the mer. I didn’t know it was you until he brought you back to the cave.”

“The…. Cave?” Kenobi lifts his head. It’s a decent size, fish bones littering the sand. Little bio-luminescent creatures dot the walls and ceiling, providing light.

“You passed out. Fives didn’t know what to do.” Rex tells him, petting a hand over his hair. “He couldn’t leave you there and he knows I have some interaction with the reef folk. So he brought you back.“ Kenobi sniffs and cuddles against Rex’s broad chest, letting himself be soothed. "What were you doing out there anyway?”

“Being an idiot.” Kenobi says with a little sigh. “One of the other mers in my age group keeps ripping my fins and I just wanted to get away from him for a few hours.”

“Hes doing what?” Rex scowls and skims a hand under Kenobi’s tail, lifting it up so he can peer at Kenobi’s fins. Kenobi sighs and dutifully fans them out so Rex can see the ragged ends. “That hookfaced jellyfish fucker.”

Kenobi goggles a bit at the filth that comes out of Rex’s mouth.

XxX XxX

Kenobi meets Fives, the shark that scared him on the reef. The mer looks dangerous up close as he did when he was just a vague shadow. 

"I wanted to apologize." Fives says awkwardly. "I wouldn't have scared you like that if I knew you were Rex's." Rex clears his throat and gives his cousin a pointed look which makes Fives sigh. "I shouldn't be out scared reef folk at all. I've learned my lesson."

"You don't sound very sincere." Kenobi points out and Fives grins at him, flashing razor sharp teeth. 

"I'm not. Rex made me apologize." Kenobi gives the shark mer a bland stare. "You picked a good one. Your pa's gonna be happy."" Fives tells Rex, sounding pleased. 

"You apologized. Go away Fives." Rex growls and Fives stretches lazily and flicks his fins, propelling him away with a grace Kenobi finds himself envying. Bruck was right, his fins are useless and beautiful compared to that whipcord strength. "Are you hungry?" Rex asks when the annoyance has left the cave and Kenobi looks up at him, seeming to consider it. 

"That depends on what you have to offer food wise." Kenobi says. "I don't suppose you have kelp." Rex snorts.

"I don't. But I can get some for next time you visit me." 

"That would be nice." Kenobi agrees, flushing a little at how bold he's being. Even if he does know Rex, it's still been a year since he spoke to the mer. 

"Do you only eat kelp?" Rex asks, curious and Kenobi shrugs.

"It's a staple, but it's hardly the only thing I eat."

"Fish?" Rex asks, sounding a bit hopeful and Kenobi nods.

"Of course. Snails. shellfish. Barnacles are a delicacy but you have to harvest them in low tide and the last time I went up to chisel them off the rocks, I almost got caught by a human." Rex frowns, running his hands down Kenobi's arms, like he's making sure the delicate finned mer in front of him is alright. 

"Do you go up to the surface often?"

"No." Kenobi shakes his head. "I did when I was younger, and foolish."

"You hung around me when you were young and foolish." Rex points out with an easy grin and Kenobi grins back at him.

"And look where that got me." He flirts back, hardly aware he's doing it.

"Sun's up." A gruff voice announces from outside and Rex subtly puts himself in front of Kenobi as a dark haired, dark eyed shark with a nasty looking scar bisecting his eye swims into the cave. "Time to swim your little fishy back to the reefs, maj-"

"Yes. Thank you, Wolffe." Rex glares at the guard, interrupting him. "I'll take him back after he eats."

"Maj?" Kenobi asks, sliding a finger over Rex's dorsal fin and hiding a smile when the mer shivers.

"It's a nickname." Rex says and makes a shooing motion at Wolffe who rolls his eyes and turns, swimming back out.

"It's an odd nickname." Kenobi says. "Then again, Bruck calls me useless beauty." Rex scowls and then reaches out to haul Kenobi into his arms. 

"You are the most georgous creature I have ever seen in the entire ocean, and though I've only known you for a few years. I am well assured there is _nothing_ useless about you." He skims his hands down Kenobi's tail, fingers playing gently with the frilly pelvic fins he finds and Kenobi goes red, slapping at Rex's hands.

Rex just grins at him and pulls him back in, fingers flicking over Kenobi's tail in little teasing touches. "Breakfast." Kenobi says sharply, blushing heavily at the intimate strokes over his fins and scales. "You promised me breakfast."

"I did?" Rex hums and presses teasing little kisses up Kenobi's throat and jaw, working his way up to Kenobi's plush mouth. "I guess I'll have to feed you then, coppertail." Kenobi trembles in his arms and Rex brushes their mouths together, soft and sweet, like that first kiss he stole four years ago. "Say you'll be mine." He whispers it against Kenobi's sweetly parted mouth and Kenobi shivers.

"I'll be yours." Rex's mouth curves up and he nuzzles Kenobi, kissing him again, and then again, teasing Kenobi's mouth open, careful of the mers delicate lips and tongue against his own viciously sharp teeth. 

"Majesty." Wolffe shouts from the cave opening. "We've prepared breakfast for your _friend._ Now come eat so you can take him back to the reef."

Rex pulls back from where he's gently teasing Kenobi's tongue with his own, growling in frustration. "Bottomfeeding busybody." He rumbles it. One look at Kenobi's face shows he's too dazed to have caught Wolffe's words and Rex just sighs and nuzzles the poor mer. "Breakfast, coppertail. Come on." 

Kenobi shivers and blinks, some of the haze clearing out of his eyes. "What-you-REX!" He covers his face with one hand and slaps at Rex with the other while Rex laughs, hooking an arm around his waist and swimming out of the cave. 

XxX XxX

"So. Why did you leave with no warning?" Rex asks over a meal of fresh fish.

"Bruck told the elders that I was going to the drop off." Kenobi says with a little sigh. "They got scared that I was going to lead you back to our nest and told me I wasn't allowed to leave the reef."

"You know, every time you have an issue, that scumsucker's name comes up." Rex says, tearing into a yellow snapper. Kenobi eats his own more delicately, wrinkling his nose at the _bits_ of fish that sink down to the sandy floor.

"He's been the bane of my existence since we hatched on the same day." Kenobi sighs.

"Is he your brother?"

"No." Kenobi shakes his head. "We're not even from the same nest. Just hatched on the same day. I came out two hours before him and apparently that was enough to make him hate me." Rex grunts, crunching through delicate bones in a way that makes Kenobi shiver and move the slightest bit away.

Rex would never hurt him, or at least, he's pretty _sure_ Rex would never hurt him. But he's been told since fry-hood that sharks and shark mers are monsters, that he needs to stay away from them or he'll be turned into a pretty finned snack for their sharp teeth.

"Sorry." Rex gives him a sharp toothed grin. "The crunch is the best part." Kenobi just laughs and picks up another yellow snapper. 

"Of course it is."

"So, what are those?" Rex asks and Kenobi raises an eyebrow, following Rex's interest to the beads wrapped around his tail. "You didn't have those the last time you came to see me."

"Oh." Kenobi busies himself with eating before he answers, trying to find the words. "Do you know what an engagement is?" Rex nods and Kenobi's dimples make an appearance. "They're engagement stones."

"Who are you engaged to?" Rex asks, starting to scowl. Kenobi is _his._ Has been his ever since he stole a kiss four years ago.

"You, idiot." Kenobi huffs, flushing. "I made them myself. No one believed me when I said I had a promise for my twenty seventh birthday. Bruck said I was lying. So I collected the rocks and pearls and bits of seaglass and I made them. Because...well because you looked at me and wanted me when I was still an ugly guppy."

"You were _never_ ugly." Rex says, reaching out to tug on Kenobi's unbound hair. He gets a blinding smile in return and Kenobi launches himself into Rex's arms, kissing him fiercely, feeling a wave of happiness crash over him.

"I'm yours." He tells Rex in between kisses. "I'm yours. I'm yours. I'm yours." Rex laughs, twining their tails together, careful of his sharp fins and denticles against Kenobi's delicate tail. 

"So. We should maybe have a conversation about something." Rex says, nuzzling Kenobi. "It's not a bad conversation."

"Oh?" Kenobi settles his arms over Rex's shoulders, just looking at him.

"I'm-triton's beard how do I even say this?" Kenobi starts to look worried and Rex just blurts it out. "My father is Jango."

"The shark king?" Kenobi's eyes go huge. "You...you're....maj. It's not a nickname. That mer was calling you majesty."

"He was, yes." Rex nods. "But that doesn't change anything, coppertail. It doesn't change us, and the fact that I still want you to be mine. I want it more than I've ever wanted anything."

"But. You're the prince." Kenobi says, voice small. "I'm just...I'm nobody."

"You are somebody with or without me." Rex says, leaning in to nuzzle Kenobi. "But I want you to be mine. I want to be yours. I want to hunt with you and make a nest with you and make a _life_ with you." Kenobi's mouth trembles and he nods, pressing his face against Rex's neck. 

"I want that too." He admits, hugging onto Rex tightly. "And I...I don't want to go back. Don't make me go back Rex. Please. I hate it there."

"Okay." Rex murmurs it, rubbing a hand up and down Kenobi's back. "Okay. I'm not going to make you go back. You can stay here with me."

XxX XxX

"He can absolutely not stay here." King Jango says, as calmly as he can. "He's not of age, and he's reef folk. Look at his fins, Rex, the rocks here will tear them to shreds."

Kenobi flinches and squeezes his fins together as much as possible. The king is right, and he's a complete idiot for thinking he'd be allowed to stay here. Of course the king isn't going to let some soft finned reefer stay out here with the sharks. 

"Father." Rex's voice is soft and he puts an arm around Kenobi, holding him close. "Please. We have territory by the reefs that he could stay. It would be-"

"If he is truly your intended." Jango says, voice as hard as a harpoon. "Then he will come back to you when he has reached a mature age. Until then, keeping him here is dangerous."

"I understand." Kenobi says, voice barely a whisper. The king sighs and swims over to him with a flick of his tail. 

"This is not a place for you." Kenobi's chin is tipped up. "It's dark, and hard, and dangerous. Things like you aren't made to live in places like this." The king tells him and Kenobi nods and shuts his eyes as he's crushed with disappointment again.

They're going to make him go back. Back to Bruck and his pinching fingers and his terrible words. Back to the reef where he's just a pair of beautiful fins and nothing more. He should have known. 

"I'm going with him." Rex says and Kenobi lets himself be gathered up.

"Rex."

"Father." His voice carries the same hardness. 

"I will allow you to escort him." Jango says after a few moments. "But you will stay no more then a day, or I _will_ send Wolffe to collect you."

"Thank you, father." Rex says, though to Kenobi it sounds more like a curse and then he's being carried through the water, held against Rex's strong chest. 

Jango watches the two of them go and sighs, rubbing his temples. He'd hoped Rex would grow out of his obsession with the reef mer during the year they'd been separated.

"I'm not taking you home." Rex says as he swims away from the dormant volcano that's home to the shark court. "I'm taking you to the sea-witch Padme."

"The sea...the sea-witch?" Kenobi's eyes go wide and he digs his nails into Rex's thick skin. "Rex you can't! She'll cast a curse on us."

"No she won't. She just says that to keep reef folk away from her. They ask for stupid things like making their scales shinier." Rex says, kissing the side of Kenobi's head. "She's going to help you."

XxX XxX

Before they get to the cave, Rex tugs out one of his teeth, shrugging at Kenobi's horrified look. "It was gonna come out anyway." He takes a chunk of hair from behind Kenobi's ear and slices it off, winding the beautiful copper strands around his fingers. "Always offer payment to a sea-witch _before_ you make a deal." Rex tells Kenobi who nods. "It saves you the trouble of having _them_ decide what a good price is."

Rex swims down to the sandy floor, taking Kenobi with him and moving his fingers over the sand until there's a sudden flash of movement and flying sand. Kenobi coughs, protective membranes slipping over his eyes and he reaches out to grab onto Rex. "What was that?"

"Fishing." Rex says, showing him the enormous, disgusting flounder that's now hanging off his arm. "This is a prize, it'll feed the sea-witch for a week." Kenobi makes a face, leaning in to kiss Rex's cheek.

"That was very impressive."

"Thanks." Rex hauls Kenobi against him and swims upwards, heading for the twisting cave system Padme lives in. Things litter the cave, tributes brought by sharks and other mers. Coins and jewels and golden treasures from ship wrecks that span every decade since man first learned how to cross the waves.

Kenobi stays close as Rex moves through the twists and turns of the cave, hiding his face against Rex's chest when the last twist they take brings them into pitch black waters.

"How can you see?" Kenobi whispers, holding tight to Rex.

"I know the way." Rex tells him. "I've been swimming these tunnels since I was a pup fresh out of the womb." It's another few moments of swimming before they leave the darkness behind, entering a warm pool of shallow water, warmed by the sun that beats down through the hole in the cavern roof.

"Oh." Kenobi lets go of Rex, moving around easily now that there's no strong currents. "Oh this is lovely."

"I'm glad you like it." Comes a new voice and Kenobi spins, almost getting tangled in his own fins. "Careful now, pretty fins." She's georgous is Kenobi's first thought. All shades of glittering reds and golds. "Rex, good to see you."

"Padme." He leans in to kiss her cheek, offering first the flounder, and then the chunk of hair he'd cut off of Kenobi earlier. "I need a spell. For him." He indicates Kenobi and Padme raises an eyebrow, winding the copper hair around her fingers. 

"What sort of spell?

"We're engaged." Rex says, sounding a bit embarrassed and Padme grins widely.

"I never thought I'd see the day the great Rex got engaged before his brother."

"Shut up." Rex glares. "His fins are useless in open water, they weigh him down."

"So cut them off." Padme says and flicks her tail to show off her own tattered fins. Kenobi looks shocked and she moves towards him, rubbing their cheeks together, winding her tail around his. "Beauty is only fin deep, pretty thing." She tells him, moving off to sit on a ledge. 

"I'm not cutting off his fins." Rex snaps and Padme shrugs. "They're a part of him."

"So is his hair, but you had no trouble cutting that." Padme points out, winding and rewinding the strands over her fingers.

"If. If I gave you my fins. Could you give me something to make them grow back stronger?" Kenobi asks, voice wavering a bit. Rex opens his mouth, outrage on every part of him. Padme holds up a finger, silencing the shark before he can speak.

"Yes. That is a deal I am more than willing to take. He'll stay with me while his fins grow back." Padme tells Rex. "I'll take care of him. Come back to this cave in one months time, and your intended will be waiting for you Rex." She smiles at Rex and then makes a shooing motion with her hands. "Now go away. I have magic to work."

XxX XxX

High tide comes, and high tide goes and finally, when the moon rises, fat and bright in the sky, brighter than Kenobi has ever seen it, never daring to get this close before, Padme finally declares it time.

He's been staying with her for a week now, helping her collect shells and kelp from the forest near the beach. The kelp forest is soft and peaceful and Kenobi flits through water far more gracefully than he ever did on the reef back home. He loves the way the light filters through the kelp, it's beautiful in an eerie sort of way, and if he wasn't promised to Rex, he'd be more than alright with staying here for the rest of his life.

Rex has been visiting every single day, always bearing gifts of food, sometimes little treasure he finds in the wrecked ships near the caverns the shark clans call home. Padme is always welcoming but wary when she invites him into her home, and Kenobi wonders if he should be more wary around the shark prince than he has been. But Rex just smiles at him and Kenobi's heart flip flops like a fish on land and the butterfly fish in his stomach go still.

The night the moon rises, Rex brings nothing but himself, as Padme instructed. Kenobi is laying on the soft white sand, looking up at the moon and trying not to think of how much this is going to hurt. There's a part of him, a big part that's shouting not to change himself, that he was built this way for a reason. 

But he wants to be with Rex. And the open ocean is no place for useless beauty. He needs to do this. He needs to free himself of these weights that do nothing but hamper him, that catch and tear on the corals that sheltered him as a fry. 

"I'm ready." Kenobi takes a breath and his eyes flick to Padme, and the wickedly sharp tooth she holds, bigger than her palm.

"Where did you get that?" Rex asks, voice soft with awe.

"I found it." Padme says. "Way down in the deep darkness where even you won't go. Hold your intended still, highness. I don't want to cut what I'm not supposed to."

Rex nods and moves to take Kenobi in strong arms, curling his tail around Kenobi's slender one. Kenobi takes a breath and then nods, gripping slender white fingers around Rex's dark ones. Padme look up at him, no hint of pity in her eyes. "This is going to hurt." She tells him, grabbing a handful of his tail fin and slashing downwards with the tooth. 

The teenagers necking on the beach will tell everyone they know that they heard the screams of drowning fisherman at the cove, that it really is haunted like everyone says. And for weeks afterwards, everyone will keep their distance.

Padme slices through the last shred of pelvic fin and Kenobi's body jerks in Rex's arms. He lost consciousness somewhere around the severing of his dorsal fin, which is for the best. There's blood in the water, Kenobi's blood in the water, and for all that Rex knows who the blood belongs to, it's still heavy on his tongue, makes him want to dig his teeth into all of Kenobi's soft spots and shake him viciously like the prey he smells like.

"Do you need to leave?" Padme asks, putting the last delicate shred of fin in an ancient iron chest. 

"I do. Tell him I'm sorry. Don't tell him why." Rex grits out. The last thing he wants is for his one to fear him. He lets Kenobi go and swims away as fast as he can, before he does something he'll regret for the rest of his life. He'll be back tomorrow, or maybe the day after, when his chosen one doesn't smell so much like chum.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all. This is all I've got for this piece. I know it kind of leaves off on a cliff hanger and I'm sorry for that. My brain has just been a bag of cats lately. If I get inspired I'll add to this piece. :)


End file.
